Explaining Purgatory to a Protestant.

Being "Saved" is not enough to finally see the face of God; you also have to ascend to actual Holiness, first.

It's Ash Wednesday already. Remember to observe a day of fasting and abstinence. Mass for us is 7:00 PM, so we probably don't have to rush quite so too much to get there after work today. May you have a blessed Lenten Season.

These days a lot of new WebPages are inspired by discussions with people I meet in my day to day activities, as I am out and about. Wearing a big Crucifix entices some people to admire or ask about it, and occasionally get into deeper conversation. When the conversation gets into my faith, I love it, but, I'm not the world's best Catholic apologist.

I know my faith, but I'm more of a typical Catholic layman, in that, I may be able to quote you a whole lot of verses from the Bible, but I cannot necessarily tell you the book, chapter and verse where they may be found. Even when I have a Bible present, I fumble around trying to find what I'm looking for. Most Protestants, at least the ones I talk to, seem to have it all memorized.

Well, I just can't do that. I'm old, you know. They say the first three things to go are your memory, and - I forget the other two.

After some of these conversations, the topic continues to churn in my tiny little brain. Evenings after dinner, if I'm not too tired, I post the day's comments on this site and maybe comment myself, and maybe start a new webpage. Maybe.

But mostly, I get into researching topics best in the early morning hours before breakfast and work. Sitting at the computer is a different story than fumbling around in personal conversation. I find what I'm looking for quickly in an on-line Bible, an on-line Catechism, an on-line Catholic Encyclopedia, and search engines that search the whole literary world, and do it quickly.

Then I do a new WebPage, showing all the stuff I wish I would have said in that previous conversation with someone, and in the process become primed for the next conversation with that person. Whom, in most cases, I never even see again. Oh well. In any event, this time, all the stuff on Purgatory is down on this page, and if it ever comes up again, and I have forgotten it all again, I can come back here to refresh my aging memory.

The Catholic Church didn't "invent" Purgatory at some date after the death of the last Apostle. It was always there; it was Martin Luther who threw it out, back when Protestantism was invented. He eliminated a lot of Doctrine and a lot of Scripture that didn't suit his new religion. Some of it - the New Testament books of Hebrews, James, Jude, Revelation - were put back in later. But he threw out the Old Testament books of Wisdom, Sirach, Judith, Baruch, Tobit,1 Maccabees and
2 Maccabees, and they stayed out.

How could he do this, so many centuries after St. Jerome's work, the Vulgate - the world's first one-book Bible - which the Church was using then, and continues to use to this very day?

Well, he relied on the newer Jewish canon of Old Testament Scripture, which came out of the anti-Christian Jewish Council of Jamnia around 90 AD. And why did the Jewish Council throw these books out?

There had been a Jewish Revolution against Rome, the result of which was a slaughter of the Jews, and the burning of the Temple in 70 AD. The Christian community stood neutral, and did not come to the military support of the Jews; an unforgivable offense, to the Jews. If they had supported the Jews, the revolution still would have failed, and they, too, would have been slaughtered. Regardless; it happened, and that precipitated a more or less permanent split between Jews and Christians.

From that time on, Christians were no longer welcome in Synagogues, and this was a real, crushing cultural and societal problem for the Christians, because most Christians at that time were also Jews. Most all of them, in Israel, were relatives.

Now when Jesus was in Israel the prevailing Party was the Pharisees, who believed in the afterlife. The opposing Party, not in power, were the Sadducees, who did not believe in the afterlife. By the time of the Council of Jamnia, this situation was reversed, and the Party that did not believe in the afterlife was in power.

Hence, in the drawing up of the new Canon, they were able to eliminate Jewish references to the afterlife, although under another pretext. Books written after a certain date, and books written in Greek, or any language other than Hebrew, were eliminated. Also, at that time, it was forbidden to unroll and read from the Prophet Isaiah in the Liturgy of the Word in the Synagogues, because it foretold Jesus Christ, the Suffering Lamb.

We know these books were in the Greek Septuagint, because St. Jerome used them to translate into his Latin Vulgate. And we know that many of the Old Testament Scriptures Christ and others quoted in the New Testament came out of the Septuagint, too. But the Jamnia Canon rejected all Greek, and included only Hebrew.

This was a perfect Canon for Martin Luther to adopt, because he didn't want anybody praying for the dead anywhere in his new Scripture.

A discussion about Purgatory is not a discussion about the typical Protestant question of "Are You Saved?", because that question has already been answered. Everyone in Purgatory is already saved; they will all see the face of God. But it's not enough to be saved; you have to be holy to come into the presence of God.

Now, it ain't necessarily easy to be saved; it takes constant attention, avoidance of evil, and seeking of grace. But, being saved, in my view, is easy, compared to being holy. People like Mother Theresa may be one in a million, or one in a billion. Most of us are nowhere near that level of holiness.

Jesus' first answer to the rich young man sets the example: Keep the Commandments. That's pretty simple. But, it's kind of going through the motions for the sake of salvation, and that's not holy. We can keep the Precepts of the Church, and make sure we never miss Mass; but if we're going to Mass just to avoid hell, that may be salvific, but it is certainly not holy. It's doing the bare minimum. You won't be punished for doing what's right and called for, but neither will you see God until you come to a more pure and holy realization of Who He Is.

We become holy when we do what we do out of the love of God. Not to avoid hell, but to please God, out of love. To sublimate our will in order to fully do the will of God.

So, those who say "I'm a good person" may find salvation, if what they say is true; but being "good" is not enough to make it straight to heaven. You have to be holy.

Strive for peace with all men, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. --Heb 12:14

There are degrees of sanctification. Holiness comes from the Holy Spirit; we are sanctified by the Sacraments, if (and only if) we come to the Sacraments worthily. If we do not seek and hold to Truth, if we take pleasure in unrighteousness, then forget it; we are hell bound.

But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren
beloved by the Lord, because God chose you from the beginning to be
saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth. --2 Thes 2:13

Here's how the Catechism defines it:

III. The Final Purification, or Purgatory

1030
All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly
purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death
they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to
enter the joy of heaven.

1031 The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned.606
The Church formulated her doctrine of faith on Purgatory especially at
the Councils of Florence and Trent. The tradition of the Church, by
reference to certain texts of Scripture, speaks of a cleansing fire:607 (954, 1472)

As for certain lesser faults,
we must believe that, before the Final Judgment, there is a purifying
fire. He who is truth says that whoever utters blasphemy against the
Holy Spirit will be pardoned neither in this age nor in the age to come.
From this sentence we understand that certain offenses can be forgiven
in this age, but certain others in the age to come.608

1032
This teaching is also based on the practice of prayer for the dead,
already mentioned in Sacred Scripture: “Therefore [Judas Maccabeus] made
atonement for the dead, that they might be delivered from their sin.”609
From the beginning the Church has honored the memory of the dead and
offered prayers in suffrage for them, above all the Eucharistic
sacrifice, so that, thus purified, they may attain the beatific vision
of God.610 The Church also commends almsgiving, indulgences, and works of penance undertaken on behalf of the dead: (958, 1371, 1479)

Let us help and commemorate
them. If Job’s sons were purified by their father’s sacrifice, why would
we doubt that our offerings for the dead bring them some consolation?
Let us not hesitate to help those who have died and to offer our prayers
for them.611

Scripture calls the abode of the dead, to which the dead Christ went down, “hell” — Sheol in Hebrew or Hades in Greek — because those who are there are deprived of the vision of God.
Such is the case for all the dead, whether evil or righteous, while
they await the redeemer: which does not mean that their lot is
identical, as Jesus shows through the parable of the poor man Lazarus
who was received into “Abraham’s bosom”:
“It is precisely these holy souls, who awaited their Savior in
Abraham’s bosom, whom Christ the Lord delivered when he descended into
hell.” Jesus did not descend
into hell to deliver the damned, nor to destroy the hell of damnation,
but to free the just who had gone before him.

Some of us remember when the Church used to refer to this place as "Limbo", where babies lost to miscarriage or any other cause of worldly death before they were baptized awaited the mercy of God. It is not the hell of damnation, but simply the Place Of The Dead.

The Catholic Church is a "Communion of Saints". This is an element of the Creed, and therefore Dogma, the highest form of Doctrine. In Rev 8:3-4 where the angel released the smoke of the incense before God, out poured the prayers of the dead saints for us, and their prayers, and ours, for the "suffering souls". We are one body.

The whole Church Militant, here on earth, prays for the dead in every Mass.

Always seeking to do better, but always failing; always seeking to live in righteousness, but knowing my past sins and my weaknesses, my goal in life is Purgatory. I pray that I will make it to Purgatory, for then I know that in the end, I will see God.

Add prayers for those who have gone before to your prayers through this Lenten season.

May you please God, and may you live forever.

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I put it like this... Purgatory is God's "Mud Room to Heaven". Just like your Momma would not allow your "outside boots" into the house, there was a room where all that "stuff" stayed off Mommas clean floor.. So, don't cha think our Blessed Mother might want to help us keep our "stuff" out of God's house?

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